Subtle ecological changes in Oregon tide pools could signal bigger problems, OSU researchers find

UPDATED: Sun., Jan. 16, 2022

A sea star is wedged beneath a rock in the sand, exposed during low tide at Harris Beach State Park on the south Oregon coast. (Jamie Hale | The Oregonian)


By Kale WilliamsOregonian


Even in the gray days of Oregon’s winter, vivid pops of color can be found on the Oregon coast.

The rocky intertidal zone, commonly known as tide pools, is home to a rainbow of species – from orange sea stars to bright blue sea anemones to multicolored varieties of seaweed that undulate with the comings and goings of the tides.

Tide pools are also among the most resilient ecosystems on Earth, able to quickly recover from natural disturbances and bounce back on timescales not seen in many other parts of nature. That’s what led Brunce Menge, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University, to start observing Oregon’s tide pools more than a decade ago, watching to see how some of the state’s most dynamic organisms responded to climate change and warming ocean waters.

The findings of Menge and his team, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are troubling.

“Climate change is threatening to destabilize ecological communities,” he said. “A possibility is that they’ll stop being persistently occupied, what we call basins of attraction, and move into other states.”

Intertidal ecosystems can be tricky things to study, Menge said, because they often appear to be healthy, even thriving, while nearly imperceptible changes can be indicative of larger problems. They need to be studied over years, not months, so Menge and a team of researchers set out to do just that in 2011.

They selected sites at three locations on the Oregon coast – Cape Foulweather, south of Depoe Bay; Cape Perpetua, near Yachats; and Cape Blanco, on the state’s southern coast. At each location, they plotted out five areas, each a half-meter square, and cleared them of all organisms observable to the naked eye to mimic an environmental disturbance.

They also cordoned off plots that were left undisturbed for comparison to the disturbed plots. Menge and his team returned to each site once a month to take pictures of how the intertidal species were repopulating the cleared plots. Between 2011 and 2019, the plots were cleared on a yearly basis to see how their responses changed over time.

During the period of study, Oregon’s oceans saw plenty of natural disruption. In 2013 and 2014, the West Coast saw a mysterious illness among sea stars that caused a massive die-off. A marine heat wave, which came to be known as “the blob,” warmed the waters of the Pacific Northwest, causing less nutrient-dense water and sending ripple effects throughout the food chain. The heat wave was believed to be behind the deaths of young sea lions in southern California and die-offs of starving sea birds along the Oregon and Washington coasts.

“In all cases, over time the rates of recovery slowed and also became more variable,” said Sarah Gravem, an Oregon State research scientist who helped lead the study. “Increasing variation in key ecological processes can be a signal that an ecosystem is on the verge of a state shift. On the Oregon coast, the factors behind that increasing variation appear to be coming from changes in ocean currents and thermal disruptions like marine heat waves, which can alter growth, decrease colonization rates and kill organisms.”

Gravem likened the tidal pool ecosystem to a forest going through a drought, where all the same species of trees and plants might be present, but the environmental stress they are under causes changes to growth rates or seed production.

“For the first handful of years, they bounced back almost all the way. We could hardly tell the difference,” Gravem said. “Over time, the ability to bounce back slowed down and was more variable. Variability is one of the hallmarks of a system that is not as healthy as it could be.”

When animals and plants did return to the cleared plots, they did so in smaller numbers, often failed to reproduce and were, in some cases, dominated by a few species like barnacles or algae. One of the species that appeared particularly vulnerable were mussels, Gravem said, of special importance because the bivalves are prey for other important species and mussel beds act as habitat for many others.

Menge and Gravem said more research was needed to know if Oregon’s tide pools were nearing a tipping point, after which some kind of irreversible change would take hold, but both agreed the data they analyzed indicated a move in that direction as climate continues to cause warming of the world’s oceans.

“It’s possible the system could go the other way and start recovering more quickly, but we know climate change is getting worse and worse,” Menge said. “The longer term prospect is not great. We can’t say when a tipping point will happen, but there’s a good chance that it will.”

The South China Sea Holds a Key To Sustainable Blue Economies


All these point to signs that a resolution of south china sea disputes is fraught with difficulties.

January 16, 2022 by Sustainability Times 


By Xu Xiaodong

Do a search Google on the South China Sea and likely as not you’ll encounter far more links about South China Sea “disputes” rather than “cooperation.” This shows that for most people disputes are the main features of the South China Sea.

This is not surprising. In recent years, a series of incidents in the South China Sea between China and other nations such as the Philippines and Vietnam have highlighted intensified competition for natural resources, unilateral activities by claimant states and foreign interventions. All these point to signs that a resolution of South China Sea disputes is fraught with difficulties.

Nevertheless, wasting energy on the dispute does not contribute to the sustainable development of the South China Sea. When faced with the reality that the dispute cannot be resolved amicably in the short run, only the rational and ordered development and utilization of the South China Sea’s resources can lead to the adoption of true sustainability.

What is a blue economy?

The blue economy is a sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, covering three economic forms: economies coping with global water crisis, innovative development economy and development of marine economy. Although the concept of blue economy was formally introduced during the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (the Rio +20 conference) for the first time, the practice appeared as early as in 1999 in Australia.

By now it has become an intrinsic part of global ocean governance. Statistics show that the worldwide ocean economy is valued at around $1.5 trillion per year, making it the seventh largest economy in the world. It is set to double by 2030 to $3 trillion. The total value of ocean assets (natural capital) has been estimated at $24 trillion. This demonstrates the vast untapped potential for developing blue economy at national, regional, and global levels.

Currently, many states and regions regard developing the blue economy as an importation source of economic growth. For instance, Australia has recognized that ocean-based industrial development and growth is of great potential to the country’s economic and social development.

Models such as this can provide useful examples for nations in the South China Sea region.

The benefits of a blue economy to the South China Sea

Strengthening the cooperation in maritime trade between states that share the South China Sea, especially via the promotion of a blue economy, is not only essential for implementing individual national marine development strategies of regional states, but also propitious for regional economic prosperity.

Politically, successful economic cooperation practices are conducive to accumulating political and cultural mutual trust and consolidating multilateral diplomacy while reaping economic benefits for participating countries, which is fundamental for the long-term resolution of the South China Sea issue.

Economically, it is conducive for littoral states around the South China Sea to make full use of the potential of marine resources (including oil and gas, minerals and fisheries) to obtain economic benefits and achieve a win-win situation for all parties.

China, the dominant force in the region, has a long history of economic and trade exchanges with neighboring states, which can lay a good foundation for the cooperative development of the South China Sea.

Ecologically, the key to the development of the blue economy is that countries should make full use of the ocean while they avoid exploiting aquatic life, polluting marine ecosystems or engaging in other harmful practices. In so soing they must find a compromise between sustainability and economic growth, and ensure that economic growth is maintained without depleting natural resources.

Therefore, promoting blue economic cooperation between the region’s states is an important measure to protect the ecosystem of the South China Sea. If managed sustainable, this can not only create a healthier environment for marine wildife but also bring increased prosperity to people.

Tackling challenges from the exploitative use of the sea

Most economic sectors have been damaged across the region by organized crime, and the blue economy is no different. The consequences of this “shadow blue economy” go far beyond destroying the ocean’s ecosystems while endangering peace and security.

In the South China Sea, various negative factors have hindered pragmatic cooperation between claimant states and three of them are of particular importance.

1) Illegal Fishing:

The involvement of a vessel in an unauthorized location for any reason, or fishing in areas not designated for it, is a maritime offense punishable by law. Not only that, but violations like this will easily lead to major disasters at sea, raising challenges to the development of a blue economy.

Illegal fishing has long been a problem in local fisheries, jeopardizing the growth of the blue economy, national security, food security and human rights. Lured by abundant fishery resources in the South China Sea, states around the region have increased their fishing efforts.

Vietnam’s aquatic products have now become the second largest export commodity after oil while half of the fishery output of the Philippines comes from the South China Sea.

Overfishing by states in the South China Sea has led to a decline in fishery resources. China has implemented a fishing ban since 1999 to protect the sea’s ecosystems and biodiversity, but other states have not adopted similar measures.

In addition, some surveys have shown that illegal and unregulated fishing is mainly practiced in states that show common signs of bad governance, including endemic corruption, ambiguous laws and a lack of will to implement existing legislation.

That is why tackling the scourge of illegal fishing will require an improvement in the ocean-related governance of regional states.

2) Piracy:

Piracy is one of the biggest crimes affecting the blue economy. It is perhaps the most well-known marine crime and a serious threat to maritime stability, causing enormous financial losses and often physical damage.

The South China Sea is located at a key position between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, and is an important hub of the international trade network.

However, since the end of the last century, piracy in the South China Sea has been rampant. Pirates have become a serious threat to the development of the blue economy.

According to data from the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP), there was a 17% increase in piracy during 2020, with 97 total incidents. ReCAAP also reported that piracy in Asia has increased to its highest level in five years.

To effectively formulate an action plan against piracy, the international community must be able to work together by implementing robust multilateral operations between countries. This is also essential for conducting cooperation in blue economy between regional states.

3) Pollution:

Plastic waste is a major problem worldwide and so it is in the South China Sea. Worse: the problem is on the rise, based on the amount of plastic waste entering our waters each year, which is estimated to be about 12 million tons.

As a sea area of great biodiversity significance, the South China Sea contributes to the development of the global economy with its rich biological resource, oil and gas, and convenient waterways. While the busy maritime trade and the development of large-scale oil and gas resources have brought economic benefits to the regional states, the South China Sea has been under tremendous pollution pressure.

A series of environmental problems, such as coastal erosion, solid waste pollution, sewage discharge, industrial waste, overfishing, destruction of coral reefs and mangroves, have seriously threatened the region’s marine environment.

All of these challenges pose grave threats to the emergence of a sustainable blue economy in the region, but they can also be tackled if nations join forces in mutually beneficial cooperation.

Xu Xiaodong is a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies in China.

—

This post was previously published on sustainability-times.com under a Creative Commons License.

HIP CAPITALI$M

Double dealing: Legal, illicit blur in California pot market

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD

January 16, 2022

1 of 8

FILE - In this April 15, 2019, file photo, a vendor makes change for a marijuana customer at a cannabis marketplace in Los Angeles. An unwelcome trend is emerging in California, as the nation's most populous state enters its fifth year of broad legal marijuana sales. Industry experts say a growing number of license holders are secretly operating in the illegal market — working both sides of the economy to make ends meet. 

(AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — On an isolated farm, greenhouses stand in regimental order, sheltered by a fringe of trees. Inside are hundreds of head-high cannabis plants in precise rows, each rising from a pot nourished by coils of irrigation tubing. Lights powerful enough to turn night into day blaze overhead.

In the five years since California voters approved a broad legal marketplace for marijuana, thousands of greenhouses have sprouted across the state. But these, under their plastic canopies, conceal a secret.

The cultivator who operates the grow north of Sacramento holds a coveted state-issued license, permitting the business to produce and sell its plants. But it’s been virtually impossible for the grower to turn a profit in a struggling legal industry where wholesale prices for cannabis buds have plunged as much as 70% from a year ago, taxes approach 50% in some areas and customers find far better deals in the thriving underground marketplace.

So the company has two identities — one legal, the other illicit.

“We basically subsidize our white market with our black market,” said the cultivator, who agreed to speak with The Associated Press only on condition of anonymity to avoid possible prosecution.

Industry insiders say the practice of working simultaneously in the legal and illicit markets is all too commonplace, a financial reality brought on by the difficulties and costs of doing business with a product they call the most heavily regulated in America.

For the California grower, the furtive illegal sales happen informally, often with a friend within the tight-knit cannabis community calling to make a buy. The state requires legal businesses to report what they grow and ship, and it’s entered into a vast computerized tracking system — known as “seed to sale” monitoring — that’s far from airtight.

“It’s not too hard” to operate outside the tracking system’s guardrails, the grower said. Plants can vary widely in what each one produces, allowing for wiggle room in what gets reported, while there is little in the way of on-site inspections to verify record-keeping. The system is so loose, some legal farms move as much as 90% of their product into the illicit market, the grower added.

The passage of Proposition 64 in 2016 was seen as a watershed moment in the push to legitimize and tax California’s multibillion-dollar marijuana industry. In 2018, when retail outlets could open, California became the world’s largest legal marketplace and another steppingstone in what advocates hoped would be a path to federal legalization, after groundbreaking laws in Colorado and Washington state were enacted in 2012.

Today, most Americans live in states with at least some access to legal legal marijuana — 18 states have broad legal sales for those 21 and older, similar to alcohol laws, while more than two-thirds of states provide access through medicinal programs.

Kristi Knoblich Palmer, co-founder of top edibles brand KIVA Confections, lamented that the migration of business into the illegal market was damaging the effort to establish a stable, consumer-friendly marketplace.

“To have this system that now appears to be failing, having people go back into the old-school way of doing things ... it does not help us get to our goal of professionalizing cannabis and normalizing cannabis,” she said.

In California, no one disputes the vast illegal marketplace continues to dwarf the legal one, even though the 2016 law stated boldly that it would “incapacitate the black market.” Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was lieutenant governor at the time the law was approved, called it a “game changer.”

But California’s legalization push faced challenges from the start. The state’s illegal market had flourished for decades, anchored in the storied “Emerald Triangle” in the northern end of the state. Not since the end of Prohibition in 1933 had an attempt been made to reshape such a vast illegal economy into a legal one.

In October, California law enforcement officials announced the destruction of over 1 million illegal plants statewide but said they were finding larger illicit growing operations. In the cannabis heartland of Humboldt County, many illegal growers are moving indoors to avoid detection. Investigators are making arrests and serving search warrants every week, but with so many underground grows “we may never eliminate the illegal cultivation,” Sheriff William Honsal said in an email to the AP.

California’s illegal market is estimated at $8 billion, said Tom Adams, chief executive officer of research firm Global Go Analytics. That’s roughly double the amount of legal sales, though some estimates are even larger.

In September, a cannabis company sued government regulators in state court in Orange County, alleging so-called burner distributors were using shadowy “front men” to get licenses to buy wholesale cannabis, then selling it in the illegal market to sidestep taxes.

No state is claiming to have eliminated illegal operators. U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, said he saw little prospect for undercutting illegal markets without federal legalization, which has been stalled in Congress despite having Democrats in control of Congress and the White House.

The thriving illegal markets in California, Oregon and elsewhere are a “product of the dysfunction, the lack of resources and the fact that we don’t have a national market that is regulated,” he said.

Like the California cultivator, many businesses do some transactions in the illicit market to help make ends meet, but others have given up on the legal economy or never bothered to enter it.

While California’s legal market tightly controls how and where pot is sold, the illegal industry is easy to access and offers a doorway into a vast and profitable national market.

“Licensed players are the good guys. Yet it just never feels like we’re being treated like we’re on the right side of history,” Knoblich Palmer said.

California’s effort to establish itself as the preeminent player in the legal cannabis economy has never felt more imperiled, and talk is spreading of a Boston Tea Party-like rebellion against state policies. In a December letter to Newsom, about two dozen industry executives said the state was crippling the marijuana economy.

“The California cannabis system is a nation-wide mockery, a public policy lesson in what not to do,” the business leaders wrote. Newsom has signaled he’s open to change.

The anonymous grower said the burden of competing in the regulated economy simply doesn’t make sense to many longtime operators who came up in the pre-Proposition 64 marketplace. There is a widespread mindset — “Why bother?” — when the illegal economy is booming and there is little law enforcement to fear.

In Los Angeles, for example, opening a retail operation can cost $1 million or more with licensing fees, real estate costs, attorneys and inspections — if you can get a license at all. Promises of social equity programs that would assist businesses run by people of color who were targeted during the war on drugs have gotten off to an uneven start.

For the struggling legal market, “when you have quality, price and convenience working against you, that’s a challenge,” said Adams, the cannabis analyst. “The illicit market has all three of them.”

An irony in the legal market is that wholesale prices have plummeted, shaking the supply chain. A year ago, a cultivator could get about $1,000 a pound wholesale. Now that’s dropped as low as $300, with the market saturated.

Slap $150 in cultivation taxes on a $300 pound, and that’s a stunning 50% rate.

Part of the problem for the industry is about two-thirds of California cities do not allow legal sales or growing — local governments control when, or if, to create legal markets, and many have banned it or failed to set up rules. Even in places that do, cities have been slow to permit storefronts to sell legal products, with less than 1,000 brick-and-mortar shops in a state with nearly 40 million people.

Meanwhile, wholesale prices for buds in the underground are significantly higher. The legal market, with limited outlets to sell it, is flooded with pot from corporate-scale growers.

Few know the industry as well as dispensary owner Jerred Kiloh, who also heads the United Cannabis Business Association, a Los Angeles-based trade group.

“No one is making money anywhere in the (legal) supply chain,” he said, noting his own sales have nosedived. Kiloh sees few bright spots in the law that established California’s legal market, beyond a testing program that safeguards quality and programs to expunge old criminal records for marijuana.

With Proposition 64, “we did it all wrong,” he said.

Turkish court clears German journalist Mesale Tolu of terror charges

A court in Turkey has acquitted journalist and translator Mesale Tolu of belonging to a terrorist organization. Tolu said "the verdict cannot make up for the repression and the time spent in detention."

 

Mesale Tolu spent months in Turkish detention before she was allowed to return to Germany

An Istanbul court on Monday cleared journalist and translator Mesale Tolu of belonging to a terrorist organization.

Tolu — who was born in the southern German city of Ulm — and her husband Suat Corlu had also been charged with spreading terrorist propaganda. 

Both did not take part in the proceedings, having already left Turkey to return to Germany.

"After 4 years, 8 months and 20 days: Acquittal on both charges!" wrote Tolu on Twitter. 

"In a state under the rule of law, such a trial would not have happened in the first place," she went on. "The verdict cannot make up for the repression and the time spent in detention."

What happened in the case?

In April 2017, Tolu was arrested by heavily armed anti-terror units in Istanbul and spent more than seven months behind bars. In 2018, she was allowed to leave for Germany. 

Tolu was arrested while working as a translator for a left-wing news agency. She and her co-defendants, including Corlu, were charged with membership of the extremist Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, which is seen as a terrorist organization in Turkey.

If found guilty, they would have faced prison terms of up to 20 years.

Ahead of the ruling, Tolu told DW she now finally wants closure, saying that she wants to look ahead and fully focus on her work as a journalist with the German newspaper Schwäbische Zeitung.

In September 2021, a Turkish prosecutor urged the acquittal of Tolu. While the prosecution said all the co-defendants should also be acquitted on that charge, it is still demanding sentences against some defendants on terror propaganda charges — including against Tolu's husband.

Christian Mihr, the Executive Director of Reporters Without Borders Germany, who was in Istanbul to observe the proceedings said Corlu had also been acquitted.

The case is not an isolated one. The Turkish Journalists Union (TGS) says there are currently 34 journalists in Turkish jails, most of whom are accused of belonging to a terror organization, insulting the president or spreading terrorist propaganda.

rc/rs (dpa, epd)

Could the Red Sea's heat-resilient corals help restore the world's dying reefs?

Corals in the Gulf of Aqaba have a unique evolutionary history that could help them survive the climate crisis. Scientists even hope to breed their resilience into other reefs.

The coral reefs of Aqaba have a resilience to warming waters seen nowhere else in the world

Beneath the warm, crystal-clear waters of the Gulf of Aqaba at the northern tip of the Red Sea, lies a bustling city of colorful corals. At sunrise, fish emerge from their coral shelters, joining eels, turtles and octopuses to swim through these teeming waters. 

This vibrant scene is untouched by the mass bleaching that has plagued reefs elsewhere. Most corals can only survive within a narrow temperature range. As oceans get warmer, stressed corals evict their energy-producing algae and lose their color. When corals bleach and die, entire ecosystems can collapse with them. 

Corals, like these on the Great Barrier Reef, have already succumbed to warming waters, leaving a ghostly underwater landscape bleached of once-vibrant life

A recent study found that 14% of the world's coral reefs were lost in less than a decade. Ravaged by global heating, pollution and habitat destruction, global coral reef cover has halved since the 1950s. Experts predict that up to 90% of corals could perish in the coming decades. 

But some hope is emerging from the northern shores of the Red Sea, as Aqaba's corals appear unaffected by steadily warming waters. 

"We found that the corals in Aqaba could withstand temperatures far above the summer maximum of 27 degrees [Celsius],"  (80.6 degrees Fahrenheit) said Maoz Fine, a marine biology professor who led research on coral heat-resilience at The Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat, Israel.

Hope from the Red Sea 

Fine and his team designed an aquarium system to simulate future conditions in the Red Sea and ran experiments on what makes the corals in Aqaba so resilient. 

While most corals will bleach within a degree or two above their normal range, experiments showed that Aqaba's corals could endure temperatures up to six degrees Celsius higher than the maximum summer temperature they're usually exposed to. 

"We tested about 20 different species of corals, and all of them showed high tolerance to thermal stress," said Fine. "Despite rising temperatures, the corals never bleached."

This resilience to heat is thought to be a product of how corals migrated into the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean during the last Ice Age, some 20,000 years ago.

To reach the Gulf of Aqaba, corals had to pass through the Gulf of Aden and the southern part of the Red Sea, where water temperatures are much higher. Over generations, larvae of surviving corals moved north and populated areas with significantly lower water temperatures, but they retained their heat resilience.  

The 'Red Sea Simulator' allows scientist to study Aqaba's uniqely heat-resistant corals

"These corals were selected for high temperatures, but they live in temperatures about six degrees below their bleaching threshold," said Fine. 

Although corals in other regions are adapted to warmer waters, Fine said no other corals have such a large gap between the maximum temperatures of the waters they live in and their bleaching thresholds. "This is one of the few places we know where corals will be able to survive global warming," he said.

As coral reefs face mass destruction across the globe due to rising temperatures, researchers and conservationists hope the Gulf of Aqaba could become a refuge for the world's remaining corals. 

Could Aqaba's corals help other reefs? 

"Aqaba's corals could be a source to repopulate reefs if corals die everywhere else," according to Manuel Aranda, a marine biologist at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. 

The problem, Aranda said, is scale. 

"The Great Barrier Reef is the size of Italy. We can't plant reefs the way we spread seeds on land," he said, since coral plantation requires divers to go into the water and manually fix coral fragments grown in nurseries. 

Coral plantations are too costly and time-consuming, and species introductions are often very challenging. But Aranda is part of a research group at KAUST that is working to identify heat-resilient corals and cross-breed them with coral populations elsewhere to increase their heat tolerance.

Corals support a rich diversity of marine life that's acutely vulnerable to climate change

"Usually, it takes many generations for corals to adapt," said Aranda. But the planet is warming faster than this process of adaptation. He hopes to speed up genetic exchanges to give corals a chance of keeping up with rising temperatures: "We hope that with cross-breeding, we don't have to plant corals, they will reproduce themselves." 

But this method still takes time and Fine isn't convinced it will work on a large-scale. He believes the focus should be on identifying and preserving resilient reefs, rather than trying to grow corals elsewhere. 

"What we can offer is knowledge, understanding which genes were selected down south when entering the Red Sea and what that means for thermal resilience," Fine said.  

'We owe it to future generations'

About 25% of all marine species live in and around coral reefs, making them among the most diverse habitats in the world. 

"The Gulf of Aqaba has a very diverse ecosystem," said Jordanian conservationist Ehab Eid. "In Jordan, we have identified 157 species of hard corals and there are over 500 species of fish. More than half of them depend on the corals."

In addition to providing vital habitats for marine life, coral reefs also provide food and medicines, protect shorelines, and secure the livelihoods of over500 million people worldwide. 

Despite their resilience to high temperatures, Aqaba's corals are vulnerable to pollution and unsustainable urban coastal development, putting at risk the livelihoods of the many people in Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt who depend on fishing and tourism in the Gulf of Aqaba.

Fishermen in the Jordanian city of Aqaba, whose catch depends on the coral ecosystem, say fisheries aren't as plentiful as they used to be

"The corals are essential for fish here," said Ibrahim Riady, who has worked as a fisherman in the Jordanian city of Aqaba for over two decades. "Our livelihoods depend on them." He and other local fishermen said their catches had declined over the last decades. 

Scientists are calling for the reef to be protected to ensure the gulf can serve as a refuge for corals that, if they survive local threats, could revive reefs elsewhere. "The Gulf of Aqaba might be one of the last reefs standing at the end of the century," said Eid. "It's a treasure. We owe it to future generations to preserve it."

Edited by: Ruby Russell

Germany proposes scrapping Nazi-era abortion law

Doctors in Germany are forbidden by law from providing information on abortion procedures. That looks set to change as the governing coalition has agreed push the issue, but the procedure will remain technically illegal.


Access to information about abortions is set to become easier thanks to a new draft law

Germany's Justice Ministry proposed a draft law on Monday to end the restrictions on doctors' offering information about abortion procedures.

Abortion is technically illegal in Germany, but an exception is made for abortions in the first trimester if the patient goes to a counseling session. The procedure is free.

A Nazi-era law from 1933 also forbids doctors from providing information about abortion procedures. The law has been criticized for making access to abortion more difficult.

"Doctors should also be able to inform the public about abortion without running the risk of criminal prosecution," German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said on Monday.

How does abortion work in Germany?

Currently, doctors are allowed to inform patients that they provide termination of pregnancy services, but cannot offer information on how the various procedures work.

The new law would scrap this censure. Doctors have only been allowed to advertise that they even provide such medical services since 2019.

The governing parties had planned to propose such a reform during coalition talks in November.

The coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) — of which Buschmann is a member — all agreed on the proposal, so its passage through the Bundestag seems clear.

What is the reasoning behind the planned reform?

One of the reasons given for the draft law was the ongoing legal uncertainty for medical professionals who provide the key services. The draft also explained that ease of access to abortion procedures varied across the country.

Buschmann also described the absurd situation where the law permits any random person to spread any kind of information about abortions online, but medical professionals may not.

"The situation for the affected women is difficult enough — we shouldn't make it even more difficult," the justice minister said in Berlin.

Buschmann said the law on abortion itself would not change. It will remain illegal, but not a punishable offense if it is carried out in the first 12 weeks.

An abortion after that period is also not a punishable offense in cases where there is a threat of physical or psychological harm to the mother.

Former acting DHS inspector general pleads guilty to fraud


Former acting Homeland Security Inspector General Charles Edwards has pleaded guilty to theft of proprietary software, containing personal information, in scheme to defraud U.S. government.

 Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 15 (UPI) -- A former acting inspector general for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has pleaded guilty to stealing government software in a scheme to defraud the U.S. government, the Justice Department announced.

Charles Edwards, 61, of Sandy Spring, Md., who worked as acting inspector general under the Obama administration, was accused of stealing government software from his former office, so his company, Delta Business Solutions, could sell a case management system to government agencies, according to court documents, cited by the Justice Department on Friday

The theft occurred between 2015 until 2017, according to a department release.

Edwards pleaded guilty Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to federal charges stemming from the scheme, including conspiracy to commit theft of government property and theft of government property, and he will be sentenced at a later date, the DOJ said in the statement.

Prior to working for DHS-OIG from 2008 to 2013, Edwards had worked for the U.S. Postal Service-OIG, which gave him access to both agencies software systems, including "personally identifying information of DHS and USPS employees," the Justice Department noted.

"Today Mr. Edwards accepted responsibility for having unauthorized possession of the case management system that he himself helped build when he was with the federal government," Edwards' attorney, Courtney Forrest, said in a statement to The Hill. "While he had no intent to harm anyone -- in fact he was trying to build a better system for the government -- he understands that his possession of the system and the sensitive data within it as a private citizen was inappropriate and sincerely regrets his error in judgment."

A second defendant in the case, Murali Venkata, 56, of Aldie, Va., has pleaded not guilty and his case is pending.

Edwards resigned as acting inspector general in December 2013 amid allegations of misuse of office.

Among the allegations related to misuse of office, whistleblowers accused him of violating anti-nepotism law by employing his wife and retaliating against employees who resisted misconduct, The Hill previously reported.

"I will defend myself against these personal attacks," Edwards told The Hill at the time.

County’s $7M in PPE left outside, damaged by California rain

Posted: Jan 15, 2022 

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) — About $7 million worth of surplus personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies, purchased by a Northern California county earlier in the coronavirus pandemic, was damaged in recent rainstorms after it was left outside for months, officials said Friday.

San Mateo County officials acknowledged the disaster following a KGO news report, published Thursday,that showed video of scores of sodden boxes outside the San Mateo Event Center in the San Francisco Bay Area.

San Mateo County, south of San Francisco, is among the wealthiest counties in the nation. Workers are inspecting the damaged boxes to see if the items inside — many of them individually wrapped — will still be usable. The undamaged goods will be donated to a nonprofit.

The county plans to hire an investigator to figure out how the items were left outside since mid-September, when they were moved to an outdoor fenced-in area to make room for an event at the center.

The boxes should have been brought back indoors once the event was over, according to Friday’s statement from County Manager Mike Callagy.

“It clearly is a mistake by the county,” Callagy told KGO in an interview.

The equipment in the boxes included PPE like non-medical-grade isolation gowns, sterile gowns, face shields and goggles as well as cleaning supplies such as bleach and mop buckets and handles, the statement said.

The county’s supply of gloves and masks — including N95 and KN95 respirators — are stored indoors.

Callagy’s statement said the county purchased the items early in the pandemic when PPE was becoming scarce nationwide so that local first responders and medical providers would have what they needed. The demand for the equipment has decreased as the pandemic has continued.

NONUNION

Kentucky candle factory destroyed by tornado to lay off workers
By Adam Schrader

An aerial photo made with a drone shows the destruction of the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory after tornadoes moved through the area leaving destruction and death across six states in December 2021. File Photo by Tannen Maury/EPA-EFE


Jan. 16 (UPI) -- The Kentucky candle factory that was destroyed by a tornado in December will potentially lay off hundreds of workers who can't be moved to a nearby plant.

Mayfield Consumer Products revealed in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filed on Monday that the company plans "to accelerate the opening of its planned facility at Hickory Point" in Hickory, about 10 miles away, transferring about half of its 501 employees to the new plant.

About 250 employees are expected to be laid off, with the rest being transferred to the Hickory facility, according to a list of affected positions provided with the notice. The layoffs are expected to be permanent.

Nine candle factory workers died after a series of tornados blew through the region on Dec. 10, with the deadly storms killing at least 89 people in Kentucky and surrounding states. There were more than 100 people working at the factory at the time of the disaster.

RELATED Kentucky officials to probe safety policies at candle factory where 8 died

The U.S. Department of Labor requires companies to provide at least 60 calendar days advance written notice of a mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees at a single site of employment, including those that are the direct result of a natural disaster.

"There will not be room for the entire operation to move to Hickory Point. Therefore, not all employees will be able to transition to the plant," the notice reads. "Those employees not offered a transfer to the new facility will be laid off."

The company's website currently serves as a landing page, which includes a statement from CEO Troy Propes and the number for a hotline that has been established to provide information to employees.

"Our Mayfield, Kentucky facility was destroyed December 10, 2021, by a tornado, and tragically employees were killed and injured," the message from Propes reads.

"We're heartbroken about this, and our immediate efforts are to assist those affected by this terrible disaster. Our company is family-owned and our employees, some who have worked with us for many years, are cherished."

POSTMODERN FASCIST

Eric Zemmour: Far-right French presidential candidate convicted of inciting racial hatred over migrant children comments

Mon., January 17, 2022



A far-right candidate in the French presidential election has been convicted of inciting racial hated over remarks about migrant children in 2020.

Eric Zemmour has been fined 10,000 euros (£8,350) and must pay several thousand euros in damages to anti-racism groups.

It's the third hate speech conviction for the ex-TV pundit, who is hoping to replace Emmanuel Macron in April off the back of anti-Islam and anti-immigration rhetoric.

Zemmour went on trial in November charged with "public insult" and "incitement to hatred or violence" against people due to national, ethnic, religious or racial origin.

The case centred on comments in September 2020 to broadcaster CNews about children who migrate to France without parents or a guardian.

He said: "They're thieves, they're murderers, they're rapists. That's all they are. We must send them back. These people cost us money."

Zemmour didn't withdraw his comments and insisted political debate should not be taking place in court. He also claimed prosecutors and anti-racism groups were trying to "intimidate" him.

It isn't the end of his legal troubles - on Thursday he will face an appeal trial on a charge of contesting crimes against humanity, which is illegal in France.

That follows a 2019 TV debate in which he argued that Marshal Philippe Petain, head of the collaborationist Vichy government during the Second World War, saved French Jews from the Holocaust.

Zemmour was acquitted last year, saying that his comments did negate Petain's role in the extermination, but that the court did not convicted him as he had spoken in the heat of the moment.

Lawyers plan to cite similar comments he's made recently as evidence in the appeal.

Zemmour's other convictions are for inciting racial hatred in 2010 after trying to justify discrimination against black and Arab people.

In 2016, he was convicted of inciting racial hatred over anti-Islam comments.

He has faced other cases but been acquitted.